DOCSLIB.ORG

Examining Narrative Form in the Scholars

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Examining Narrative Form in the Scholars Journal of chinese humanities � (���6) 98-��9 brill.com/joch Examining Narrative Form in The Scholars Shang Wei Translated by Colleen Howe Abstract In Wu Jingzi’s (吳敬梓) The Scholars (Rulin waishi 儒林外史), the narrative is con- structed through the characters’ descriptions of themselves as well as “character zones” reconciled within the dialogue, resulting in a distinctive narrative form. This article rationalizes inconsistencies in narrative time not as the product of false authorship but, rather, as the product of Wu Jingzi’s narrative style. Furthermore, because these incon- sistencies are found primarily in dialogue, solving the mystery of narrative time gives us an unparalleled opportunity to examine the novel’s narrative form. Wu’s writing style is perhaps best described as laissez-faire: weaving personal experiences together with anecdotes and rumors drawn from his social circle, he fashions a character-driven nar- rative form that mixes different perspectives and voices. More importantly, his narra- tion illuminates the world of the Qing-era literati, reflecting the oral and written narrative cultures of the Confucian elite. Keywords Chinese literature – narrative form – The Scholars – Wu Jingzi Though set primarily in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), The Scholars (Rulin wai- shi 儒林外史) takes place during the period from the late Yuan (1271-1368) to the early Qing (1644-1911). Except for chapters 1 and 56, the core of the novel takes place over 110 years and the reigns of six successive Ming emperors: Chenghua (成化), Hongzhi (弘治), Zhengde (正德), Jiajing (嘉靖), Longqing (隆慶), and Wanli (萬曆). A close reading reveals that chapters 2 to 55 are * Shang Wei 商偉 is a Du Family Professor of Chinese Culture in Department of East Asian Lan guages and Cultures, Columbia University, New York, U.S.A.; e-mail: ws110@columbia .edu. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���6 | doi �0.��63/�35��34�-��Downloaded3400�8 from Brill.com09/24/2021 06:11:10AM via free access examining narrative form in the scholars 99 largely a year-by-year recording of events, with temporal dislocations occur- ring in chapter 7 (eight years), chapter 25 (ten years), and chapters 54 and 55 (twenty years). In “Chronicling The Scholars (Ruilin waishi jili 儒林外史 [紀歷]),” Tan Fengliang (談鳳梁) offers a detailed analysis of the novel’s nar- rative time. He notes its subtle, painstaking complexity but also reports a number of errors and omissions. Some dates appear to be incorrect or do not conform to other details in the novel, while in other cases the narrative time is unclear, “insufficiently precise” or “seemingly unreliable.”1 He notes nineteen such instances throughout the novel, although the majority is in the second half. Upon close examination, it is possible to identify further errors of a simi- lar nature. Even if we disregard confusion stemming from unclear narration or dialogue, which are not considered here, we are left with at least ten such inac- curacies. Why is this so and how does it inform our interpretation of the novel? Chronological inaccuracies instinctively raise the suspicion of false author- ship, and this is the answer that many scholars have offered, but it cannot be the only possible answer. Resorting to false authorship cannot clarify why the narrator so rarely errs in his chronology of the chapters, nor can it explain why chronological inaccuracies appear more frequently in the second half of the novel. It is tempting to place the blame on a clumsy narrator or to expedi- ently eliminate these passages, but this will not do. The novel is like a seven- tiered pagoda: remove one layer, and the whole pagoda comes tumbling down. And so presuming to verify the identity of the narrator or the authenticity of the text on the basis of lapses in narrative time remains untenable, with no clear evidence.2 Wu Jingzi’s inconsistencies in chronological narration are often the result of experimentation. For example, over the course of his more than twenty years of writing and editing, he increasingly drew on his contemporaries to serve as models for his characters, often transplanting their real-life time and circumstances into the existing framework of his novels; this leads to a num- ber of contradictions and confusions in his chronology. Seen in this way, these fissures offer valuable insight into Wu’s creative process, its conflicting influ- ences, multiple time dimensions, and the external forces motivating his loose style. Embarking on such investigations, we set aside questions of authorship and authenticity in order to examine the narrative time syndrome and diag- nose its historical origins. 1 Tan Fengliang 談鳳梁, “Rulin waishi jili 儒林外史 [紀曆] (Chronicling The Scholars),” Nanjing shifan daxue xuebao 南京師範大學學報 3 (1984): 44-56. 2 I speak solely with regard to the chronology of The Scholars, and not the controversy sur- rounding the 1803 “Lying Idle Cottage” section. Journal of chinese humanities 2 (2��6) 98-��9 Downloaded from Brill.com09/24/2021 06:11:10AM via free access �00 Shang In “A New Exploration of the Chronology and Process of Writing The Scholars (Rulin waishi chuangzuo shijian, guocheng xintan 儒林外史>創作 時間、過程新探),” Tan Fengliang raises several important points.3 First, Wu began to write the novel around 1735, finishing a draft around 1748-1750, after which he began editing continuously. Second, the writing of the novel took place in two phases: chapters 1-25 were completed before February 1736, with chapters 21-25 being written in the two months after Wu returned to Nanjing from a trip to Yangzhou. Chapters 26-35 were written between 1736 and 1739. The final chapters of the novel were finished before Wu’s death.4 Third, these phases represent an important shift in the sourcing of material: though the entire book is a work of fiction, chapters 1-25 most frequently employ historical anecdotes and cultural narratives, while chapters 26-35 draw on material from the author’s own life and those of his acquaintances. From chapter 36 onward, Wu continues to draw on biographical material but also inserts historical tales and cultural narratives. Fourth, the mixing of fiction and reality becomes most pronounced in the final third of the book. There is reason to question the second point, as discussed below, but the other points are generally accurate. The last point is perhaps the most pre- scient. In the final third of the book, Wu deliberately attaches real people to the false events of the first and second sections, creating linkages between these different sections. From there arises the necessity of dealing with charac- ters that appeared in previous sections; Wu employs both direct narration and flashbacks, but he often makes mistakes. The time span of the novel is longer than the lifespan of any human character, resulting in inevitable mix-ups and absurd plotlines: Ma Chunshang is still studying for the imperial examinations at the age of nearly 100, and Tang Zhentai’s brother Tang Feng turns 100 retiring to the countryside.5 Here some explanation is required. Wu Jingzi does not narrate the biogra- phies of his characters directly; rather, these ages were deduced from details in the book, which hints at the nature of the problem. The stories of Ma Chunshang and Tang Feng were modeled after Wu’s acquaintances Feng Cui 3 Li Hanqiu 李漢秋, ed., Rulin waishi yanjiu lunwenji 〈儒林外史〉研究論文集 (A Collec- tion of Critical Writings on The Scholars) (Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 1987), 229-247. 4 There is some controversy regarding when Wu Jingzi wrote the various chapters of The Scholars. Hu Shi’s thesis that the novel was finished between 1748 and 1750 is widely accepted by scholars. 5 Tan Fengliang 談鳳梁, “Rulin waishi chuangzuo shijian, guocheng xintan〈儒林外史〉創作 時間、過程新探 (A New Exploration of the Chronology and Process of Writing The Scholars),” in Rulin waishi yanjiu lunwenji, 243. Journal of chinese humanitiesDownloaded from Brill.com09/24/20212 (2��6) 98-�� 06:11:10AM9 via free access examining narrative form in the scholars �0� and Yang Kai.6 As the time that Wu wrote the novel, both Feng and Yang were still alive, so in his mind’s eye Ma and Tang were the same age or close to the same age as they were in real life. Wu continued to follow the lives of these real-life acquaintances and added new events into the novel as they trans- pired. Thus, the biographies of his fictional characters directly followed and were even dependent upon the lives of their real-life models. As he set out a chronological framework for his novel, Wu calculated the dates year by year, but occasional lapses still occurred, resulting in a chronological framework independent of the narrative framework of the novel and even occasionally in conflict with the narrative framework. The collective efforts of multiple generations of scholars have resulted in a rich corpus of literature with regard to the characters, but we too often dis- regard the influence of the characters’ real-life models and their own stories on narrative time. Although these real-life characters are combined with ele- ments of fantasy, the narration of The Scholars is inextricably tied to the chro- nologies of their real-life biographies. Real-Life Models and the Problem of Narrative Time In chapter 25, Xiang Ding calls on his old friend Bao Wenqing when passing through Nanjing. He tells him, “More than ten years have passed since we parted.” Tan Fengliang places this event in the sixty-first year of the novel’s chronology. Bao Wenqing and Xiang Ding’s farewell in Andong County in chap- ter 24 would have occurred some ten years before that. This would mean that ten years had passed between chapters, a rarity in The Scholars.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • University of California Riverside
    UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE Uncertain Satire in Modern Chinese Fiction and Drama: 1930-1949 A Dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Comparative Literature by Xi Tian August 2014 Dissertation Committee: Dr. Perry Link, Chairperson Dr. Paul Pickowicz Dr. Yenna Wu Copyright by Xi Tian 2014 The Dissertation of Xi Tian is approved: Committee Chairperson University of California, Riverside ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Uncertain Satire in Modern Chinese Fiction and Drama: 1930-1949 by Xi Tian Doctor of Philosophy, Graduate Program in Comparative Literature University of California, Riverside, August 2014 Dr. Perry Link, Chairperson My dissertation rethinks satire and redefines our understanding of it through the examination of works from the 1930s and 1940s. I argue that the fluidity of satiric writing in the 1930s and 1940s undermines the certainties of the “satiric triangle” and gives rise to what I call, variously, self-satire, self-counteractive satire, empathetic satire and ambiguous satire. It has been standard in the study of satire to assume fixed and fairly stable relations among satirist, reader, and satirized object. This “satiric triangle” highlights the opposition of satirist and satirized object and has generally assumed an alignment by the reader with the satirist and the satirist’s judgments of the satirized object. Literary critics and theorists have usually shared these assumptions about the basis of satire. I argue, however, that beginning with late-Qing exposé fiction, satire in modern Chinese literature has shown an unprecedented uncertainty and fluidity in the relations among satirist, reader and satirized object.
    [Show full text]
  • Communication, Empire, and Authority in the Qing Gazette
    COMMUNICATION, EMPIRE, AND AUTHORITY IN THE QING GAZETTE by Emily Carr Mokros A dissertation submitted to Johns Hopkins University in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Baltimore, Maryland June, 2016 © 2016 Emily Carr Mokros All rights Reserved Abstract This dissertation studies the political and cultural roles of official information and political news in late imperial China. Using a wide-ranging selection of archival, library, and digitized sources from libraries and archives in East Asia, Europe, and the United States, this project investigates the production, regulation, and reading of the Peking Gazette (dibao, jingbao), a distinctive communications channel and news publication of the Qing Empire (1644-1912). Although court gazettes were composed of official documents and communications, the Qing state frequently contracted with commercial copyists and printers in publishing and distributing them. As this dissertation shows, even as the Qing state viewed information control and dissemination as a strategic concern, it also permitted the free circulation of a huge variety of timely political news. Readers including both officials and non-officials used the gazette in order to compare judicial rulings, assess military campaigns, and follow court politics and scandals. As the first full-length study of the Qing gazette, this project shows concretely that the gazette was a powerful factor in late imperial Chinese politics and culture, and analyzes the close relationship between information and imperial practice in the Qing Empire. By arguing that the ubiquitous gazette was the most important link between the Qing state and the densely connected information society of late imperial China, this project overturns assumptions that underestimate the importance of court gazettes and the extent of popular interest in political news in Chinese history.
    [Show full text]
  • Appropriating the West in Late Qing and Early Republican China / Theodore Huters
    Tseng 2005.1.17 07:55 7215 Huters / BRINGING THE WORLD HOME / sheet 1 of 384 Bringing the World Home Tseng 2005.1.17 07:55 7215 Huters / BRINGING THE WORLD HOME / sheet 2 of 384 3 of 384 BringingÕ the World HomeÕ Appropriating the West in Late Qing 7215 Huters / BRINGING THE WORLD HOME / sheet and Early Republican China Theodore Huters University of Hawai‘i Press Honolulu Tseng 2005.1.17 07:55 © 2005 University of Hawai‘i Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of Amer i ca Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Huters, Theodore. Bringing the world home : appropriating the West in late Qing and early Republican China / Theodore Huters. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8248-2838-0 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Chinese literature—20th century—History and criticism. 2. Chinese literature—20th century—Western influences. I. Title. PL2302.H88 2005 895.1’09005—dc22 2004023334 University of Hawai‘i Press books are printed on acid- free paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Council on Library Resources. An electronic version of this book is freely available, thanks to the support of libraries working with Knowledge Unlatched. KU is a collaborative initiative designed to make high-quality books open access for the public good. The open-access ISBN for this book is 978-0-8248-7401-8. More information about the initiative and links to the open-access version can be found at www.knowledgeunlatched.org. The open-access version of this book is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY- NC-ND 4.0), which means that the work may be freely downloaded and shared for non-commercial purposes, provided credit is given to the author.
    [Show full text]
  • READING BODIES: AESTHETICS, GENDER, and FAMILY in the EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY CHINESE NOVEL GUWANGYAN (PREPOSTEROUS WORDS) by QING
    READING BODIES: AESTHETICS, GENDER, AND FAMILY IN THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY CHINESE NOVEL GUWANGYAN (PREPOSTEROUS WORDS) by QING YE A DISSERTATION Presented to the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy June 2016 DISSERTATION APPROVAL PAGE Student: Qing Ye Title: Reading Bodies: Aesthetics, Gender, and Family in the Eighteenth Century Chinese Novel Guwangyan (Preposterous Words) This dissertation has been accepted and approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures by: Maram Epstein Chairperson Yugen Wang Core Member Alison Groppe Core Member Ina Asim Institutional Representative and Scott L. Pratt Dean of the Graduate School Original approval signatures are on file with the University of Oregon Graduate School. Degree awarded June 2016 ii © 2016 Qing Ye iii DISSERTATION ABSTRACT Qing Ye Doctor of Philosophy Department of East Asian Languages and Literature June 2016 Title: Reading Bodies: Aesthetic, Gender, and Family in the Eighteenth Century Chinese Novel Guwangyan (Preposterous Words) This dissertation focuses on the Mid-Qing novel Guwangyan (Preposterous Words, preface dated, 1730s) which is a newly discovered novel with lots of graphic sexual descriptions. Guwangyan was composed between the publication of Jin Ping Mei (The Plum in the Golden Vase, 1617) and Honglou meng (Dream of the Red Chamber, 1791). These two masterpieces represent sexuality and desire by presenting domestic life in polygamous households within a larger social landscape. This dissertation explores the factors that shifted the literary discourse from the pornographic description of sexuality in Jin Ping Mei, to the representation of chaste love in Honglou meng.
    [Show full text]
  • Aspects of Gender in the Unofficial History of the Scholars
    Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg Institut für Kulturwissenschaften Ost- und Südasiens - Sinologie Master Thesis in Chinese Studies (Heritage and Innovation) Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Roland Altenburger Date of Submission: September 2020 Aspects of Gender in The Unofficial History of the Scholars Name: Dong Wu Address: Am Galgenberg 52D, 04-09-03, Würzburg, 97074, Germany Matrikel-Nr: 2369073 E-mail: [email protected] Acknowledgments It is not easy to have a chance to speak to the world. Fortunately, I get it right now. I have been studying at the Department of Sinology at the University of Würzburg since 2018, and I will graduate soon. Here I would like to give my deepest thanks to my teachers in the Department of Sinology. They offer the best education on Chinese studies in the world, and they helped me grow enormously. Prof. Dr. Roland Altenburger built up my academic skills. Before I came to the Department of Sinology, I knew nothing about researching Chinese literature although I am Chinese, and a big fan of Honglou meng 红楼梦 (The Red Chamber Dream). With Prof. Dr. Roland Altenburger’s instruction, I have finished 130 pages of academic papers on Chinese classical narratives including this master thesis, and they all got excellent or good grades. It is noteworthy that I had not written a single English academic paper before I came here. Isn’t it magical? It is all owing to Prof. Dr. Roland Altenburger’s remarkable instruction. Prof. Dr. Roland Altenburger’s courses on Sinological Methods, Rulin waishi 儒林外史 (The Unofficial History of the Scholars), gender history, and Tang Tales, built up my research skills step by step.
    [Show full text]
  • Aesthetics, Gender, and Family in the Eighteenth Century Chinese Novel Guwangyan (Preposterous Words)
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by University of Oregon Scholars' Bank READING BODIES: AESTHETICS, GENDER, AND FAMILY IN THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY CHINESE NOVEL GUWANGYAN (PREPOSTEROUS WORDS) by QING YE A DISSERTATION Presented to the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy June 2016 DISSERTATION APPROVAL PAGE Student: Qing Ye Title: Reading Bodies: Aesthetics, Gender, and Family in the Eighteenth Century Chinese Novel Guwangyan (Preposterous Words) This dissertation has been accepted and approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures by: Maram Epstein Chairperson Yugen Wang Core Member Alison Groppe Core Member Ina Asim Institutional Representative and Scott L. Pratt Dean of the Graduate School Original approval signatures are on file with the University of Oregon Graduate School. Degree awarded June 2016 ii © 2016 Qing Ye iii DISSERTATION ABSTRACT Qing Ye Doctor of Philosophy Department of East Asian Languages and Literature June 2016 Title: Reading Bodies: Aesthetic, Gender, and Family in the Eighteenth Century Chinese Novel Guwangyan (Preposterous Words) This dissertation focuses on the Mid-Qing novel Guwangyan (Preposterous Words, preface dated, 1730s) which is a newly discovered novel with lots of graphic sexual descriptions. Guwangyan was composed between the publication of Jin Ping Mei (The Plum in the Golden Vase, 1617) and Honglou meng (Dream of the Red Chamber, 1791). These two masterpieces represent sexuality and desire by presenting domestic life in polygamous households within a larger social landscape.
    [Show full text]
  • A History of Reading in Late Imperial China, 1000-1800
    A HISTORY OF READING IN LATE IMPERIAL CHINA, 1000-1800 DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for The Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Li Yu, M.A. * * * * * The Ohio State University 2003 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Professor Galal Walker, advisor Professor Mark Bender Professor Cynthia J. Brokaw ______________________________ Professor Patricia A. Sieber Advisor East Asian Languages and Literatures ABSTRACT This dissertation is a historical ethnographic study on the act of reading in late imperial China. Focusing on the practice and representation of reading, I present a mosaic of how reading was conceptualized, perceived, conducted, and transmitted from the tenth to the eighteenth centuries. My central argument is that reading, or dushu, was an indispensable component in the tapestry of cultural life and occupied a unique position in the landscape of social history in late imperial China. Reading is not merely a psychological act of individuals, but also a set of complicated social practices determined and conditioned by social conventions. The dissertation consists of six chapters. Chapter 1 discusses motivation, scope, methodology, and sources of the study. I introduce a dozen different Chinese terms related to the act of reading. Chapter 2 examines theories and practices of how children were taught to read. Focusing on four main pedagogical procedures, namely memorization, vocalization, punctuation, and explication, I argue that the loud chanting of texts and the constant anxiety of reciting were two of the most prominent themes that ran through both the descriptive and prescriptive discourses on the history of reading in late imperial ii China.
    [Show full text]
  • The Scholars
    Week 26: The Scholars SECTION 1: INTRODUCTION TO AN 18TH CENTURY NOVEL: THE SCHOLARS Why are we doing this sequence, a sequence that involves looking at a scroll and reading a novel? Well, in part, it's just to give you some relief, to do something fun. And you'll see that the scroll and novel go together to some extent. Both of them come from the mid 18th century in the Qing dynasty. The scroll is from around 1751. It was of the city of Suzhou. It was around 12 meters long. In fact, it's known as Prosperous Suzhou, and that's a good name for it because the city is prosperous. It was the most cultured and most prosperous city in the southeast. And the scroll is certainly showing you everything you would want to know about that prosperous city. It was done for a particular reason. The emperor had traveled south on his southern tour in 1751, and he was so impressed by the city of Suzhou that he ordered up a scroll showing the city. And this scroll you're going to be looking at was the result of that. It's a very intensive scroll, that is, it's filled with detail. There're around 4,800 people in the scroll. I didn't do the counting, by the way. 2,000 architectural attributes, or 2,000 buildings. The novel, which is commonly known as The Scholars, might more properly be called The Unofficial History of the Confucians, or Rulin Waishi. It was set not so far away, in the city of Nanjing, formerly the southern capital of the Ming dynasty along the Yangtze River.
    [Show full text]
  • UC Riverside UC Riverside Electronic Theses and Dissertations
    UC Riverside UC Riverside Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Uncertain Satire in Modern Chinese Fiction and Drama: 1930-1949 Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1g94d1hb Author Tian, Xi Publication Date 2014 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE Uncertain Satire in Modern Chinese Fiction and Drama: 1930-1949 A Dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Comparative Literature by Xi Tian August 2014 Dissertation Committee: Dr. Perry Link, Chairperson Dr. Paul Pickowicz Dr. Yenna Wu Copyright by Xi Tian 2014 The Dissertation of Xi Tian is approved: Committee Chairperson University of California, Riverside ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Uncertain Satire in Modern Chinese Fiction and Drama: 1930-1949 by Xi Tian Doctor of Philosophy, Graduate Program in Comparative Literature University of California, Riverside, August 2014 Dr. Perry Link, Chairperson My dissertation rethinks satire and redefines our understanding of it through the examination of works from the 1930s and 1940s. I argue that the fluidity of satiric writing in the 1930s and 1940s undermines the certainties of the “satiric triangle” and gives rise to what I call, variously, self-satire, self-counteractive satire, empathetic satire and ambiguous satire. It has been standard in the study of satire to assume fixed and fairly stable relations among satirist, reader, and satirized object. This “satiric triangle” highlights the opposition of satirist and satirized object and has generally assumed an alignment by the reader with the satirist and the satirist’s judgments of the satirized object.
    [Show full text]
  • Ernest Major's Shenbao Publishing House
    Transcultural Studies 2015.1 171 Recasting the Chinese Novel: Ernest Major’s Shenbao Publishing House (1872–1890) Catherine Vance Yeh, Boston University The modern novel announced its arrival in China after the aborted Hundred Days Reform of 1898 with the claim of being the truly “new novel” (xin xiaoshuo 新小 說).1 Recent scholarship (including my own) has highlighted the social and political factors that contributed to the novel becoming an engine in China’s literary and social transformation.2 The novel’s potential to address the larger issues of state and society and to advance reform was crucial in elevating the standing of this genre, which also resonated with the writers’ quest for the new and the modern.3 These developments, however, were only made possible through a set of material and cultural conditions that have received far less attention and shall be addressed in this article.4 The new material conditions included new-style publishing 1 This study took many years to reach completion. Although it was first conceived as part of my recent book, Catherine Vance Yeh, The Chinese Political Novel: Migration of a World Genre (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2015), it soon developed into a separate unit that was more suited to publication as a research article. My work has benefitted from the support and help of a number of scholars. I owe a large debt to the Heidelberg public sphere research group, where the first buds for this study emerged many years ago and where, in 2005, I first gave a talk presenting a systematic outline.
    [Show full text]
  • Satirical Fiction in Wartime Chongqing (1937-1945)
    The Transformation of Satire: Satirical Fiction in Wartime Chongqing (1937-1945) Chia-ying Shih A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Washington 2014 Reading Committee: John Christopher Hamm, Chair Yomi Braester Zev Handel Program Authorized to Offer Degree: Asian Languages and Literature - 1 - ©Copyright 2014 Chia-ying Shih - 2 - University of Washington Abstract The Transformation of Satire: Satirical Fiction in Wartime Chongqing (1937-1945) Chia-ying Shih Chair of the Supervisory Committee: John Christopher Hamm, Associate Professor The Department of Asian Languages and Literature This dissertation investigates the development of satirical fiction published in wartime (1937- 1945) Chongqing and its influence on the subsequent development of Chinese satirical fiction. Through the examination of newspapers and literary periodicals published in Chongqing, it identifies the wartime period as a turning point in the politicization of Chinese satirical fiction. "Politicization" here indicates the narrowing of satirical fiction from a range of different cultural, social and political issues to a more dominant concern with political problems. Writers use satire to expose various aspects of government problems or to express their discontent toward political authority. The extent to which writers reflect the expectation of reform from a political system which might self-correct should be judged from the political and social context in which they write and their attitude toward the authority. - 3 - Chapter 1 Introduction I. Modern Chinese Satire: An Important but Understudied Literary Mode On October 11, 2012, Chinese novelist Mo Yan 莫言 (1955- ) was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. His winning of the prize stirred up many debates in China and the West, as his close relationship with the Chinese Communist government presented a major problem for those who claimed he did not deserve to win.
    [Show full text]
  • 1 Becoming Sages: Qin Song and Self-Cultivation in Late Imperial China
    Becoming Sages: Qin Song and Self-Cultivation in Late Imperial China Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Zeyuan Wu Graduate Program in East Asian Languages and Literatures The Ohio State University 2020 Dissertation Committee Meow Hui Goh, Advisor Patricia Sieber, Co-advisor Udo Will Ying Zhang 1 Copyrighted by Zeyuan Wu 2020 2 Abstract This dissertation aims to understand the significance of qin songs (songs accompanied on the qin, the seven-stringed zither) to their practitioners in late imperial China. The qin was known as an instrument for self-cultivation throughout Chinese history. However, our current knowledge of how qin music was used for self-cultivation purposes in premodern China is largely limited to the ideological aspect, awaiting to be supported or modified by investigations of specific historical practices. Looking into different qin practitioners’ works, activities, social connections, and life experiences, this dissertation shows how they made various use of qin song—the musical form and activities related to it—to achieve their goals of becoming the ideal self. I argue that late imperial qin songs were often composed and edited for the purpose of communicating general moral principles and particular moral exemplarity to a larger community of the like-minded (zhiyin). As a result, activities related to these songs allowed the practitioners to extend their social influence on their way of pursuing sagehood. The social function of the songs challenges today’s widespread assumptions that both qin music and self-cultivation are primarily meditative and solitary.
    [Show full text]